Huge brain projects have been launched in the US, Europe, China, Israel, Japan and Canada. Japan’s Brain/MINDS project – focused on understanding the non-human primate brain – is set to receive around &dollar;30 million a year over the next decade. Between 2013 and 2023, the European Brain Project is expected to cost a cool &dollar;1.3 billion. The US project, called the BRAIN initiative, was launched in 2013 with funds of &dollar;100 million – a figure that the team says is being ramped up to &dollar;400 million annually over the next five years, after which it should be increased to &dollar;500 million a year until 2025.

The teams don’t admit to competing in a global brain race, though. “Most of us see competition as good,” John Donoghue, a member of the US National Institutes of Health committee on the BRAIN initiative, told the Brain Forum meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, last week. “The hope is that this will lead to a global initiative, like the International Space Station.”